Capitulary

The term capitularies ( singular: the Kapitular (s) or Kapitularium ) referred to in the legal history of sovereign arrangements within the meaning of laws, especially in the Carolingian period, especially under Charlemagne.

History

The capitularies were made ​​out of the court orchestra and contained legal provisions for administrative and judicial as well as military, religious and cultural affairs. They were recorded in writing and kept in Medieval Latin. Their division into several chapters (Latin capitula ) gave them the name.

They had significant influence on the development of the ( Western) European Economic and Social History and regulated, inter alia, the cultivation techniques of crops. Among the best known are the capitularies Admonitio generalis of 789, which the reform program of Charles summarizes the Great, and the so-called Capitulare de villis from the year 795, which regulated the reform of crown lands in Aquitaine.

The capitularies are often named after the place they have been published, such as the Capitular of Herstal ( 779 ) or the Diedenhofener chapter members ( 805).

The starting point of this form of jurisprudence was the king's authority, especially its spell power, which allowed him to give to his subjects speak commands or prohibitions and sanctions for non- compliance. The grandees of the empire, however, had to agree to the adoption; this took the form of consensus, for example, a national assembly. But was this a pro forma Consensus reached with the goodbye of Kapitularie process which, needed later time using the power decay of the Kings, a consent of the princes.

The written record of the agreed in the form of a Kapitulars was only part of the process of justice. Constituent effect became the Kapitular until his oral pronouncement in the different parts of the empire. This task was mainly to the Count Bishops and King messengers who had to take care also about spreading particularly important capitularies in the form of transcripts, at least in individual cases.

Especially in the time of Charlemagne the Kapitulariengesetzgebung increased sharply, and his successor, Louis the Pious, use of the opera in about equal measure. Already under Charles grandchildren however, there was again a rapid decline.

Problems of research

As the sources capitularies are only obtained in the form of copies. None of the capitularies is delivered in the original, the lyrics are, come with a few exceptions through collections that have been compiled by bishops, abbots or Counts of the Frankish Empire, for practical purposes to us. These collections often, however, raise the issue that the capitularies not treated as a separate form of legal sources, but in connection with other texts, such as the leges, the tribal rights in the Frankish Empire, about to be delivered. This is significant especially for the question of the purpose and reception of capitularies. Also arising from uncertainties that are ever to be called capitularies the texts and which are not. Various capitularies were only dated because of their tradition, but this information is sometimes doubtful.

Furthermore, there is disagreement over the classification of capitularies according to their content. For the time of Louis the Pious, a division into sacred and secular capitularies has survived, however, this distinction does not hold, since it is precisely represents the blending of secular and religious themes a basic characteristic of capitularies. For the capitularies with exclusively secular content an outline exists in three groups:

• Capitularia legibus addenda as supplements to the people's rights,
• Capitularia per se scribenda as dispositions with its own raison d'être and
• Capitularia missorum as instructions for the royal messenger.

She also comes from the time of Louis the Pious and was adopted by the research. However, this classification is problematic because in addition to fitting into these categories in turn capitularies exist mixed rules, so that a fourth group of capitularia mixta would have to be introduced.

Another problem is the relationship between the written resignation of Kapitulars one hand, and his oral pronouncement on the other hand in its significance for the entry into force of the relevant provisions. François Louis Ganshof (see literature tips below) saw in his fundamental work on the capitularies the promulgation of regulations adopted by the ruler as the only constituent act on, the actual text, however, as a mere tool for the promotion and dissemination of the adopted. This view was contradicted with the thesis that the Kapitularientexte had more character certificate and thus already occupied constitutive properties in the original version.

The general presence of the royal or imperial credentials, the registered subscriptio or imperatoris, under original capitularies is not evidence even after a study of the manuscript tradition, and therefore if attested to be regarded as exceptional.

The emergence of a Kapitulars lies largely in the dark. Ganshofs opinion was based solely on the authority of capitularies the royal spell, the right of the king to command or prohibit. In the Carolingian period the king's power was still unlimited, later this had shifted in favor of the nobility. The consent of the nobility, the consensus of the measures adopted in accordance with his interpretation was not a voluntary decision, but rather a mandatory recognition. For the King of consensus was an additional insurance, which obliged the nobility to comply with the regulations. This opinion is being challenged from various sides.

Karl Ferdinand Werner (see references ) emphasized the participation of the Frankish nobility to basic decisions of the king, it was also appropriate for the legislation. Dieter Hägermann also rejected the idea of a boundless Ganshofs prevailing royalty and found evidence in the sources that attest to a voluntary collaboration between the nobility and the king or emperor in the field of capitularies for different epochs of the Frankish Empire. Arnold Buhler emphasized in his study about the large proportion of the clerical elite in the drafting of capitularies.

Finally, the stock of copies of the research are some questions: The capitularies should be indeed in the whole empire spread with the help of transcripts for the purpose of delivery, however, the surviving copies together form a rather sparse number and have been available in the parts of the empire in different quantity. This fact suggests an insufficient production of copies, but also holds a clue to the binding force of capitularies and their scope; both were probably vary depending on contents and importance of the Kapitulars.

The North Rhine- Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts promotes from 2013 to 2029 with a total of 5.28 million euro research of the Cologne historian Karl Ubl to the capitularies the Carolingians in the Monumenta Historica Germaniae. The "Edition Frankish Mr. Scherer Lasse " is this systematically organize, digitize and re- issue in several volumes.